The Otherland
The place known to mortals as the Otherland is the realm of the dead and dreams. It exists in some form within the cosmology of every faith in Avaria, though the exact conception of it differs from one land and people to another. Regardless, it is known to be a vast realm, both its limits and its true nature unfathomable to mortalkind.
Layout
The Otherland is generally envisioned by scholars as a series of nested spheres, which in turn lie nested within the spheres of the other realms of existence. These spheres may also be called circles or rings, and each one encompasses a different experience of death and dreaming.
The outermost sphere of the Otherland lies just beneath the mortal sphere, and is known as the Slumberland. Also referred to simply as the spirit world, this place is where all manner of supernatural beings reside, from nature spirits to fae. It is likewise known to be filled with the most restless ghosts of mortalkind -- those least resigned to their fate, or still closely bound by some tie to the living world. The Slumberland closely mirrors the mortal world in layout and appearance, though its landscape may draw from the past and future as well as the present. It is an ever-shifting and unpredictable place, where the passage of time and distance frequently fail to adhere to the conventions of ordinary reality. It is said that mortals can pass into and through the spirit world via certain wayposts marked in the land of the living -- these being sometimes objects as lasting as stone columns and circles, other times as ephemeral as fairy rings.
At the opposite extent from the spirit world is the heart of the Otherland, which lies at the very center of all existence. This is thought to be the purest form of the Dream, and often the location or point of emanation of the Divine Mind of the universe. Many faiths believe that the afterlife of the virtuous is housed within a sphere of existence lying immediately outside the center, closest to the divine mystery.
Between the outermost Slumberland and the innermost core of the Dream, countless other circles of death and reverie exist. While some mystics claim to be able to calculate the exact number of layers in between the two, in truth nobody can chart for certain the strange geography of the land beyond.